Just for a change I’m posting a photo that is hot off the press – I took this yesterday! For those of you who don’t know El Torcal is a park near Antequera in Andalucia that is famous for its weathered granite rock formations. One of my friends from work (Hi Noomi!) went there last week and said it would be a good place to take photos. I took my camera to work yesterday in case the weather was good – as it was nice and sunny when I finished at 4.30 I jumped in the car and headed up to the park. After an hour of driving with the roads getting twistier and steeper I arrived at my destination. There is a car park with a visitors centre (closed by the time I got there) a couple of miradors or viewpoints with with views down to Malaga and two marked paths. I chose the longer of the two paths, 3km that supposedly takes 2 hours. It’s not an easy walk, quite a lot of it is clambering over rocks, but it’s very scenic and amazingly quiet – I can’t remember when I last heard complete silence, where I am sitting now writing this I am in the countryside but there is the constant sound of dogs barking and crickets chirping. The nature is quite impressive, as well as Griffon Vultures, wild mountain goats and a shiny, green lizard I found some very tasty blackberries (the only place I’ve seen them in Spain).

Anyway, on to the photo. Considering I was snapping away at loads of rock formations I thought were photogenic I was quite disappointed with most of the results. I’ve picked out a few more photos that I might put on my site but this is the best of the bunch. I had been looking for a rock formation that I could get the sun behind and this fitted the bill perfectly. I took three photos with the sun in different positions and this one came out best. OK, the sun wasn’t moving, it was me that was changing position, but you know what I mean. The blue sky is also quite deceptive, there were quite a few grey clouds around, just not in this photo

As always I welcome your comments…

Taken with a Nikon D1X and a Nikon 18 – 200mm lens at 18mm. Shutter speed 1/400th sec, Aperture f/10

See more photos from this day on my Facebook page: Richard Thomas Photography

A slightly different photo this time. more abstract than usual. I took this one day in August 2005 when I went out with my camera for a day in the City of London. I worked in the City for nearly 10 years before moving to Spain, but it’s a completely different place at the weekend. Gone are the hordes of suit-clad office workers (like me Monday to Friday) to be replaced by wandering tourists carrying cameras (like, er, me on this particular day!). My main aim was to get photos of the architecture close-up, so I only took my 70 – 210mm telephoto lens. I got the tube to Liverpool Street and started at 30 St Mary Axe (aka the Gherkin), moving on via the old Nat West tower (ridiculously called Tower 42 these days) to the Bank of England. My wandering then took me to Holborn Circus, St Pauls, the Millenium Bridge and back towards the Tower of London – maybe I’ll post some more of the photos I took that day at a later date.

This particular photo was taken outside a cafe on Cheapside - I spotted the chairs piled up and thought they made a nice pattern. I didn’t really have the right lens on me for the job as I was travelling light so I’m pleased with the way it came out. I’d almost forgotten about it until a couple of weeks ago when I entered it into the weekly challenge on the BBC Photo Blog, “Viewfinder” – the theme was Metal. It was only second time I had entered and I was extremely pleased when it was chosen. Unfortunately, they haven’t responded to my suggestion that they publish the number of entries they get each week so I have no way of knowing whether it was a massive achievement or those were the only photos they received You can see my photo along with the others chosen here. I especially like the interpretation of the theme in the first one, nice bit of lateral thinking!

So there you go, as always I welcome your comments…

Taken with a Nikon D1X and a Nikon 70 – 210mm lens at 75mm. Shutter speed 1/80th sec, Aperture f/4.5